Astronomer Percival Lowell believed that he was the first person to observe canals on Venus, but because of a faulty adjustment of the eyepiece on his telescope, he was in fact looking at the blood vessels in his own eye.
4
When a massive power outage struck southern California in the 1990s, Los Angeles residents reportedly called 911 to express alarm about strange clouds hovering overhead; they were seeing the Milky Way for the first time.
31
The Space Shuttle main engine weighs 1/7th as much as a train engine but delivers as much horsepower as 39 locomotives.
147
In 1859, the largest known geomagnetic storm struck the Caribbean, causing an aurora and telegraphs could even operate without a power source.
25
Mars had an oxygen-rich atmosphere around 4 billion years ago
13
Pluto is smaller than Russia.
9
The light hitting the earth right now is 30 thousand years old.
163
From the nitrogen in our DNA, to the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, to the carbon in our apple pies - all were made in the interiors of collapsing stars; we're all made of stardust.
22